The Fake Facade: Chapter One... Warner Springs

A one word summary if the last few days... Brutal. Contour walking through the Anza Borrego hills for 12 hours a day was brutal. We'd wake at 5.30 and be walking in an hour. By 10am the sun was relentlessly bearing down on us. We would then walk for 12 hours with breaks in whatever shade we could find. Which even meant contorting ourselves into the branches of an ancient juniper bush on one unforgiving day...

With roughly 20 miles between water sources we couldn't dally along. Oh and I might mention that miles are bastards! Not content with being one and a half times a kilometre... No. 1.6! Anyway 20 miles is 32 kilometres. And when someone says it's only two miles down the track... Well that's 3.2kms! Anyway. My internal pedometer is set for kilometres and I am finding the whole mile thing a drag...

Now. Where was I? Oh water. Life giving water and the wonderful Trail Angels who go out of their way to put water at crucially strategic spots. Like Scott here who maintains a cache at Scissors Crossing.

Because sometimes bottled water is a hellova lot better that the offerings on the trail...

But then Trail Angels can also show up randomly with an esky full of cold drinks and oranges...! Hallelujah!!!

Terry and Connie with their life giving esky and stories of the trail when he hiked it 15 years ago...

While the miles were brutal in the searing heat of the sun, as I lie here in a hotel in Julian California, I remember great views...

And beautiful trails that no mortal landscaper could possibly conceive...

And of course there were the interesting characters we met along the way...

Dan, who has hiked the trail many times and did a 60 mile cross country detour this time to just mix things up a little.

Steve, a retired teacher who's wife let him indulge in a life long dream to hike the PCT.

A scout troop.

This guy...

Ratatouille... A guy with a uke who is doing a podcast - trailside radio.

Bradley and David. What can I say other than: wash yourselves you filthy pigs!

Love and kisses brothers xx

Danny. Pretty much seems to be one of those all American hero types. Shrugs off rattlers like they were kittens...

And of course there had to be another (leaner, prettier, younger more athletic) Richard. Who I caught here having a man shower at a water stop. Damn dude put a shirt on!!!

Hiker trash seeking shade.

And lastly but certainly not leastly.

Dave. Owner of the Mt Laguna Outfitters:

A great store with everything a hiker could possibly need and then some!

Oh and the kitsch..! I'm just going to leave these here before continuing...

So anyway. As I lie in this hotel room listening to Valdis snore I think I have to finish with the wind down to the last day.

Vlad the impaled. Watch where you're going buddy, those cacti mean business!

By the last day we started running low on food. Snickers with peanut butter for breakfast.

But finally we reached 100 miles! Now I only have to do that 26 more times!

Eagle Rock. Yep, it's an actual thing... Just before Warner Springs.

Just before Warner Springs... And then when we got there. Nothing.

So Jim got on the blower and organised wheels and a bed in an otherwise booked out town, Julian.

Where we could do some washing and grab pizza over the road. Nothing could have prepared us for Three Cord Justice. The country and western band that just happened to finish their set on the Johnny Cash song we'd been discussing earlier that day... Fulsom Prison Blues!